DEBATE SILLY SEASON: MANDEL CALLS BROWN ‘LIAR’ – The nastiness of the Ohio Senate race was on full display at a Columbus debate Thursday as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican Josh Mandel clashed over the auto bailout, spending and Obamacare. “One of the debate's more explosive moments came when Mandel, the Republican state treasurer, called Brown a liar after Brown attacked Mandel for shirking his duties at the Treasury and for voting in lockstep with GOP legislative leaders when he was a state representative from Lyndhurst,” writes the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Joe Guillen.

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-- “‘Senator, you're a liar. You are lying to the people of the state of Ohio. You're falsely attacking me, and I won't stand for it,’ Mandel said before a crowd of 300 at the Nationwide Insurance Jeffers Auditorium. Brown struck back, reminding viewers that PolitiFact Ohio, The Plain Dealer's fact-checking arm, in July declared Mandel the state's Pants on Fire leader for his false statements. ‘Being called a liar by the winner of the pants on crown fire [sic] is just a pretty remarkable thing for a young man to say, or for a man of any age to say in a political debate,’ Brown said. ‘Josh Mandel, as we know, has trouble telling the truth.’ PolitiFact also has labeled three of Brown's claims about Mandel to be either False or Pants on Fire.” http://bit.ly/R7SXjd

‘RAPE’ COMMENT ABSENT IN McCASKILL, AKIN MATCHUP – The St. Louis post-Dispatch’s Kevin McDermott writes from the debate in Clayton: “The two contenders in Missouri's U.S. Senate race hammered each other on personal financial issues in their second debate Thursday, with Sen. Claire McCaskill accusing Rep. Todd Akin of paying his female staffers less than the male ones, and Akin accusing McCaskill of profiting from people's poverty. The personal exchange, which drew audible gasps from the audience at Clayton High School, came at the end of a debate that was, until then, largely about straightforward policy issues. Unmentioned during the one-hour debate was any reference to Akin's controversial comments in August on ‘legitimate rape’ and pregnancy.” http://bit.ly/XxfYiR

-- Akin had a Rick Perry moment during the debate, forgetting the third country for which he wants to strip foreign aid, Roll Call reports. http://bit.ly/TiAWmT

JOE WALSH’S TODD AKIN MOMENT? – That’s the headline in Roll Call after Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) stated at his debate that abortion is “absolutely” never medically necessary to save a mother’s life. The Chicago Tribune writes: “Walsh said he was against abortion ‘without exception,’ including rape, incest and in cases in which the life or health of the mother was in jeopardy. Asked by reporters after the debate if he was saying that it’s never medically necessary to conduct an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded, ‘Absolutely.’ ‘With modern technology and science, you can't find one instance,’ he said. ‘... There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.’” http://trib.in/UdCK0kRC:http://bit.ly/R7X6G3

TOO NASTY: RADIO STATION SHUTS DOWN ELLISON, FIELDS DEBATE – The radio debate on KFAI devolved into a shouting match, with Congressman [Keith] Ellison calling [Republican Chris] Fields a ‘lowlife scumbag.’ Fields accused Ellison of digging up an old domestic violence charge, which Fields says doesn’t exist. Ellison called Fields ‘stupid.’ Then Fields brought up Ellison’s recent divorce, and both candidates began exchanging insults. Check out the video for the on-air fallout. At one point, KFAI shut down the broadcast to allow the candidates to cool off, but when they returned, it started all over again.” http://cbsloc.al/RKDEfy

MORE DEBATE ROUNDUP BELOW …

Wall Street Journal, A1, “Early Uncertainty On Libya Account,” By Adam Entous and Siobhan Gorman: “The night before Susan Rice went public with the administration's assessment that the Sept. 11 U.S. consulate attack in Libya grew out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Muslim video, intelligence analysts were receiving new information that contradicted the account she gave. Intelligence agencies soon amended their stance, but it then took weeks longer—until early October—for a new intelligence assessment discounting the protests to make its way into public statements from senior officials in the Obama administration. Ms. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, based her statements that Sunday on intelligence agency conclusions that the attack had spun out of protests in Benghazi, fueled by anger over an anti-Islamic, U.S.-made video that had sparked protests elsewhere.

-- “The picture began to change over that weekend, according to U.S. intelligence officials, in the most detailed account yet to emerge of a period that has been a focus of controversy over the Obama administration's handling of the aftermath of the attack, which killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador.” http://on.wsj.com/ViB4Ev

--Speaker John Boehner, campaigning in Colona, Ill., for Rep. Bobby Schilling Thursday, said he was “shocked” by Obama’s explanation on the Libya attack. “[T]he other night in the debate, when it came to this whole issue of Benghazi, I was shocked. I was shocked that the President attempted to mislead the American people about what he knew, and when he knew it. This is a very serious situation. Four Americans were killed because of the failure of this administration. It’s time for the president to level with the American people and tell the American people the truth about what they knew and when they knew it, and who was responsible for the deaths of these four Americans.” http://bit.ly/S7RgUM

BOEHNER THE BOOGEYMAN IN CONN. HOUSE RACE – Russell Berman reports from Torrington, Conn.: “In a closely-contested House race here, Democrat Elizabeth Esty is summoning the name of an unusual Republican bogeyman to draw voters away from her opponent: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Esty is struggling to fend off Republican state Sen. Andrew Roraback in a battle for an open Democratic seat in western Connecticut. A longtime legislator with a history of working across party lines, Roraback has made inroads by pitching himself as a moderate who won’t bow to pressure from conservative party leaders. In response, Esty drops Boehner’s name as much as she does Mitt Romney’s or Paul Ryan’s. She argues that as centrist as Roraback may be, the only vote he’ll take that matters for the district is the one in January that could re-elect Boehner as the House speaker. That first vote, she said during the candidates’ first debate in Torrington, would empower a conservative agenda whose policies on the budget, the environmental, women’s rights and other issues are at odds with the views of people in Connecticut’s fifth district.” http://bit.ly/PFWjxl

GOP FROSH FIGHT FOR REELECTION – The WSJ’s Naftali Bendavid reports that about 20 of the 87 Republican House freshmen face tough elections next month: “Gone this year is some of the grass-roots ardor that swept the Republicans into power, affirmed the power of the tea party and marked the rise of a harder-edged GOP stance on fiscal issues. Some freshmen, meanwhile, are becoming more integrated into the House, accepting compromise and burrowing into committee work. Some now say their significance was exaggerated to begin with. ‘It's a very delicious narrative that 80-something freshmen rode a tea-party wave into Washington,’ said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), who is bracing for some in his class to lose. ‘But I thought 2010 was as much a repudiation of the status quo as anyone loving us.’” http://on.wsj.com/T4JonQGraphic: Who’s most at risk?http://on.wsj.com/WIMWxa

APPEALS COURT STRIKES DOWN DOMA – John Schwartz writes on A1 of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that gay Americans are a class of people who deserve the same kinds of constitutional protections as many other victims of discrimination. The 2-to-1 ruling, by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, came as the panel struck down the federal law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage. It is the first time that a federal appeals court has applied this level of constitutional protection — known as heightened scrutiny — to those unions. The case is now considered by some legal scholars to be the leading candidate for a Supreme Court review of the same-sex marriage issue. …

-- “The Obama administration initially defended the marriage act under the Department of Justice’s traditional role of defending acts of Congress as presumptively constitutional. In February 2011, however, the Justice Department declined to defend the act in court, though the government continued to enforce the law. The House created what it called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to take on the case under the leadership of Paul Clement, a former solicitor general in the administration of President George W. Bush.” http://nyti.ms/QwaFNQ

WILL CONGRESS HOLD HEARINGS? FILES DETAIL DECADES OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA: “Details of decades of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America, and what child welfare experts say was a corrosive culture of secrecy that compounded the damage, were cast into full public view for the first time on Thursday with the release of thousands of pages of documents describing abuse accusations across the country,” Kirk Johnson writes for the NYT. “Officials with the Boy Scouts fought in the courts for years to prevent the release of the documents — more than 15,000 pages detailing accusations of sexual abuse against 1,247 scout leaders between 1965 and 1985, with thousands of victims involved, perhaps many thousands — contending that fear of breached confidentiality could inhibit victims from reporting other instances of abuse.” http://nyti.ms/R8194Y

COURANT COLUMNIST: LARSON’S WIFE BEATS OUT 198 APPLICANTS FOR JOB – Kevin Rennie writes for the Hartford Courant: “When Connecticut Innovations Inc., a quasi-public state agency, sought an executive assistant to its executive director and CEO in the spring, 199 hopefuls applied. The winner: Leslie Larson, wife of seven-term U.S. Rep. John Larson. The documents Mrs. Larson submitted with her application stretch our faith in fairness. Applicants who made the first cut needed three references. A reference form with 16 questions suggests that CI wants information from people who employed, supervised or worked with the applicant. Larson crony Elliot Ginsberg, the congressman's former chief of staff and now the leader of Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, a make-work organization that depends on government largesse, completed only one question. He's never worked ‘directly’ with her but attests twice in his paragraph to her ‘great discretion.’” http://cour.at/OO2w8Y

** COURTHOUSE OR CASH MACHINE? – On Wednesday, October 24, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform’s annual summit will feature keynote remarks from Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a discussion of the 2012 elections with pollster Scott Rasmussen, Sen. Rick Santorum, and Gov. Ed Rendell. Visit www.LegalReformSummit.com to learn more and to register.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, October 19, 2012, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

My new followers include but are not limited to @aaronemeyers and @MeaghanRoseS.

DEBATE ROUNDUP CONT’D …

KAINE, ALLEN REACH FOR CENTER -- POLITICO’s David Catanese reports: “The final Virginia Senate debate ended where this hallmark campaign began: With each candidate striving to frame his opponent as a sharp partisan who would fail to break the political deadlock in Washington. It took Republican George Allen just seconds into his opening statement Thursday evening to harness Democrat Tim Kaine to President Barack Obama. … Kaine, the former governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, shot back by highlighting Allen’s six-year Senate tenure during the Bush administration, saying Allen supported a litany of policies without allocating funds to pay for them. … The 21-month race has recently nudged in Kaine’s direction. Multiple polls have shown his strength with women and minorities in populous northern Virginia have given the Democrat a nominal lead in one of the closest Senate races in the country.” http://politi.co/VidibB

-- To narrow the gap, Allen is going on offense about the defense sequester, writes WSJ columnist Kimberly Strassel: http://on.wsj.com/TiH5Q0

KAINEFINDS RELIGION IN LIFE AND POLITICS -- Steve Hendrix on A1 of the Washington Post: “A former missionary in rural Honduras, he talks frequently of how Catholicism informs his views on race and poverty and his deep embrace of cultural diversity, which he hails as ‘God’s rich tapestry.’ Faith has been one of the twin pillars of Kaine’s political success. The other is a reputation for bipartisanship that has taken a hit from his two years as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Both themes help explain the rise of a Midwestern social-justice Democrat in a churchgoing, socially conservative southern state. Virginia, which began shifting from red to purple about the time Kaine first ran for statewide office a decade ago, proved hospitable to Kaine’s blend of religious zeal and political pragmatism.

-- “But if faith is central to Kaine’s political identity, it is also a source of personal pain for an otherwise unfailingly upbeat campaigner. As he runs against Republican George Allen for a hotly contested open Senate seat, he acknowledges the ‘wrenching’ cuts to social welfare programs he made as a recession-era governor. And he grows even more solemn when the topic is capital punishment, the point at which Kaine’s political ambitions appeared to trump his moral convictions.” http://wapo.st/TxLgSo

WOMEN’S ISSUES IN CENTER RING IN CONN. – NYT’s Peter Applebome writes from Hartford: Chris Murphy, “a Democratic three-term congressman, tried repeatedly to put [Linda] McMahon, the Republican, on the defensive on issues concerning women. He noted his strong support from women’s organizations, Ms. McMahon’s opposition to requiring that employer-provided health insurance cover contraceptive services, and the national Republican support for overturning Roe v. Wade. And Mr. Murphy, 39, tried to link her election to the possibility that Ms. McMahon, 64, could become the 51st Senate vote for a Republican agenda antithetical to the values of Connecticut voters. Ms. McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, insisted that she was an independent thinker who favored allowing women to choose abortion. In her closing statement, she made her own appeal to female voters while emphasizing her background in business, saying it was time to send to Washington people who understood job creation rather than career politicians.” http://nyti.ms/ONLZlr

BALDWIN, THOMPSON TUSSEL OVER IRAN – Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Just before the debate, the Huffington Post reported [Republican Tommy] Thompson held investments in companies that did business with Iran, and [Democrat Tammy] Baldwin used that to score points during the debate. Thompson said he learned of the investments Thursday and sold them that day. Iran was expected to get attention in the debate because it had been an issue all day, with U.S. Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - authorities on international policy in the GOP - visiting Milwaukee to criticize Baldwin on the issue. … In the debate, Thompson blasted Baldwin for accepting nearly $60,000 from the Council for a Livable World, which opposes nuclear weapons and argues that Iran is not a current threat to the United States.” http://bit.ly/R7XMv5

-- Thompson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he’s given $832,500 of his own money to his campaign: http://bit.ly/RH4yoQ

REID: ROMNEY GIVES ‘USED CAR SALESMEN A BAD NAME’ – Harry Reid isn’t letting up any time soon, The Hill’s Daniel Strauss reports: “[Reid] made his remarks in Las Vegas, during his introduction of Vice President Biden, who was campaigning there. ‘Now, Joe Biden stands for everything that's fair and honest — he's a man of integrity. The man that's leading the Republican ticket for president of the United States is giving used car salesmen a bad name,’ Reid said in his remarks introducing Biden. ‘Think about it for a minute: Have you ever seen anyone that would do anything, say anything like Mitt Romney?’” http://bit.ly/TBri9G

THURSDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Melissa Weiss was first to correctly answer that Rep. Greg Walden had previously worked as a press secretary on Capitol Hill before taking over his family business running radio stations. Walden had worked for former Rep. Denny Smith (R-Ore.).

TODAY’S TRIVIA – John Clark asks: Which U.S. president did not “swear” the oath of office?

First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.

WEATHER – Partly Cloudy and warm with highs in the 70s, according to ABC7’s Doug Hill.

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/

** COURTHOUSE OR CASH MACHINE? – The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform’s annual summit will feature keynote remarks by Mayor Rudy Giuliani as well as a discussion of the 2012 elections with pollster Scott Rasmussen, Sen. Rick Santorum, and Gov. Ed Rendell. They will be joined by key state attorneys general and Beltway powerbrokers for a conversation on the state of the American courtroom. The event promises to spark debate, with political heavyweights and opinion leaders taking on the critical issues facing the legal reform environment. The event will be held on Wednesday, October 24, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Visit www.LegalReformSummit.com for the agenda and to register.

** A message from the Stop The HIT Coalition: The Health Insurance Tax (HIT) drives up health care costs for small businesses, seniors, state Medicaid programs and middle-income Americans. The HIT is estimated to cost hardworking American families an additional $5,000 over a decade. And since the cost and consequences of the HIT increase over time, America’s small businesses and hardworking families are facing a bigger HIT every year. This translates to real jobs for businesses and real wages for families. That’s why the Stop The HIT Coalition – representing the nation’s small business owners and their employees – is working hard to repeal the HIT before it causes even more damage. Congress, please stop the HIT. Once and for all. http://bit.ly/1iE6tfW **

Authors:

About The Author

Scott Wong covers transportation for POLITICO Pro, and authors The Huddle, POLITICO’s popular morning tipsheet on Congress. He was a congressional reporter with the publication from 2010 to 2012.

He reported from Tucson, Ariz., after the deadly shooting rampage that severely injured Rep. Gabby Giffords and helped break a story about Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s private plane that led to her admission she owed more than $300,000 in state property taxes.

He got his professional start in journalism covering local government for two small newspapers in his native San Francisco Bay Area. He later became a staff writer for The Arizona Republic, where he covered the Arizona statehouse and Phoenix City Hall.

After graduating from UCLA, he spent a year teaching English in a rural mountain village in Japan. He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association, and lives with his wife and daughter in Washington.